


All the Great Wide Sea

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Brandy (Song)
Genre: F/M, being metamours with the ocean, gleefully vague approach to history and setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-18 23:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13111029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: Brandy meets a woman sailor and considers futures that might make her happier than laying down whiskey all her life.





	All the Great Wide Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bethynyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bethynyc/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, bethynyc! This is kind of open-ended, but I hope it still conveys the kind of hope for Brandy that you wanted.

Brandy spent a lot of time hearing about ships.

It was only natural. All the barmaids heard about Spanish silks and strange lands and sky-cracking storms; manatees and mermaids and mirages; ghosts and lost treasures and pirates fought off. But in between all that, all the girls picked up a bit of fore and aft, starboard and port, square and lateen and Bermuda rigs, capstan winches, the words to shanties, on which words to pull the rope. Enough to make their way around the deck of a ship, if ever they needed.

It wasn’t only men who piled into the bar with a purse full of silver and a head full of tales, either. You got the occasional woman coming along, as tattoo-mottled and shaggy-haired as the men, in ragged trousers and oft-patched shirts. One quiet night Brandy wound up pouring sweet red wine for a woman with three brass rings punched through one ear and the five-thousand-mile swallow tattooed on the back of her hand.

“How’d you get to be a lady sailor?” Brandy asked, as the wine glugged into the cup.

“Well,” the sailor said, smiling. “Officially, I’m not. There’s no Josephine on the ship’s records, just a Joseph. I pretended for a while, but it only lasted so long, and eventually I realized I wasn’t fooling much of anyone. And I missed people seeing a woman when they saw me, even a mannish one, so I quit binding my tits and started calling myself Josie again.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Some do it and just stay men, decide they like it better I suppose. But it wasn’t for me.”

“It’s that easy?” Brandy asked. The wine welled up to the lip of the wooden cup; she righted it quickly. Josie snorted.

“Oh, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “Not easy at all. But I manage.”

Brandy hesitated, glancing back at the bar. No one was calling for her yet. “Why’d you do it?” she asked. “And is it worth it?”

“Why’d I do it?” Josie grinned. “What, you don’t hear enough drunk sailors singing the praises of the ocean? She’s the freest and oldest thing in the world. We’re all in love as May-mad fools.”

Brandy’s fingers drifted to the locket at her throat. “And is it worth it?” she repeated.

“Every day.” Josie raised her glass to the door and the salt sea breeze. “Always.”

“How strong do you have to be to be a sailor?” Brandy asked. “Would strong enough to lift a cask of whiskey do?”

Josie pursed her lips, considering. “Might do,” she said. “I’m not in a position to hire anyone, mind, but I’d say it’d do.”

"Brandy!" someone called behind her -- there it was -- and Brandy left Josie an apologetic smile and bustled on.

Later that night, after the bar had closed down and the last drunks been packed out into the night, Brandy wandered down to the docks, to stare at the waves shining in the moonlight. The wind lifted her hair like a caress. She turned the silver locket over in her hands.

“Plenty of women share a man,” she said aloud, looking out at the brilliant water. “Plenty of us come to love each other too.” The waves lapped loud against the dock _._ She tilted her head back to stare at the masts towering above her. With one hand she squeezed her other arm, feeling the bulk of the muscle there.

Her man’s ship would be back in town soon, and always ready to take on new hands. Always happy to offer someone a place on the word of a trusted sailor. Always happy to show someone the whole great width of the world and the whole of the glorious sea.

In the quiet of the town, Brandy set her eyes on the horizon and smiled.


End file.
